Shiver
by thisloser
Summary: Hypothermia doesn't work like this, but who cares?


The chattering of his own teeth is what wakes Kakashi up. His jaw aches with it; it echoes through the numb mass of his body and rattles his bones. He's cold, freezing cold, _frozen_. Something wet and sticky is covering half of his face and he wants to reach for it, but can't. His arms won't move and Gai is above him, looming, and then complete darkness falls as Gai pulls Kakashi's shirt over his head.

"Kakashi," Gai says, all agitated, his breath an angry cloud of steam in Kakashi's face. Kakashi can't feel it; he can't feel anything but the shaking and the leadenness of his limbs.

His teeth rattle like dice in a cup.

It's snowing outside. To Kakashi it's like he can hear the whisper of each individual snowflake settling on their tent. Beneath him, the ground seems to breathe a coldness that invades his body like an army.

And then Gai settles on top of him and blots out the darkness. There's the whine of the sleeping bag's zipper being pulled back up, but mostly there's the heat of Gai's naked body on top of his.

"Sorry," Gai says against Kakashi's cheek, "there's no other way."

It's only Gai's warmth that allows his frozen thoughts to begin crawling through his mind again. The water jutsu, ice crystals dancing in the air, refusing Gai's help, dragging himself to the campsite exhausted. Kakashi blinks in the darkness, wanting to burrow into his friend's body, and mumbles, "Shouldn't… My clothes must've still been wet …"

"Shhh, it's okay. No need to worry because you're actually really lucky, Kakashi! You have the most hot-blooded man in the world right here with you! I'll warm you up in no time, Rival!"

Gai's laughter is nothing but foam on a wave concern, splashing Kakashi's icy skin. Kakashi knows him too well to fall for this kind of lighthearted decoy-talk. They've been reckless, they've made rookie mistakes, the kind that would've earned them extra laps around the training field back at the academy, and now they're paying the price.

He wants to curl into Gai and close his eyes and go to sleep, but he can't, of course he can't.

Gai shifts, he takes Kakashi's numb hands and sandwiches them between their bodies, laying them neatly over Kakashi's crotch to warm them up. When Gai settles back down, Kakashi feels the warm softness of his friend's penis brush against the back of his hand and rest against his thigh. He doesn't mind.

"Tell me… a story," he mumbles against Gai's cheek. Stubble grazes his naked lips.

"What kind of story?" Gai's voice rumbles through Kakashi like a landslide, loosening the stiffness in his frozen limbs, getting the blood to flow again.

Kakashi smiles and imagines that Gai can feel the small movement on his skin. "Hmm… a happy story." As if Gai knows any other kind.

Gai chuckles; he loves talking, loves the sound of his own voice, and even more, Kakashi knows, Gai loves knowing that he is listening.

The story is about a Team Gai mission in the Land of Rivers, it's full of funny and adorable shenanigans that Gai is probably exaggerating for his benefit. Either way, Kakashi does close his eyes now, lets himself be submerged in the darkness around them, in the rise and fall of Gai's voice and the warmth radiating from his body.

It comes as no surprise to him when his blood begins to flow into a certain direction. Kakashi times his breaths to Gai's, to the too close beating of his heart. He can feel it reverberating in his own chest, somewhere behind the gentle curve of his pectoral. Gai's body is heavier than his, sturdier. In places it feels like Kakashi is yielding to his greater mass; he can almost see himself caving in to make room for Gai.

A hiss from Gai and the story comes to a premature end. The reason for this would be the slight shift against the inside of Kakashi's thigh, soft like silk but growing more insistent, the pulsing heat there. Gai is hard too.

Suddenly the tent is filled with an awkward silence; Gai freezes on top of Kakashi. Mutual mortification is just a breath away.

Kakashi takes that breath, curls his revived right hand into a loose fist and brushes his knuckles against Gai's erection. Gai gasps, hands planted on each side of Kakashi's head, he wants to push himself up. They both hear the creak of the sleeping bag straining.

Kakashi breathes in and out. He's curious. He wants Gai's warmth and he liked the way Gai's skin felt against his, familiar and fragile. It's dark and they are far from home; Gai has saved his life tonight and no one will ever know. These are the thoughts that race through his mind, and below them rests a deep yearning for closeness, for touch, for something else he doesn't want to name, not even in the privacy of his own head.

And maybe, maybe Gai really can read Kakashi's mind the way he sometimes claims when he's drunk on challenges, teetering on the edge of another competition and grasping for one hyperbole after the other, because he settles back down before Kakashi even has time to shiver from the cold that so eagerly slipped in to fill the space between them.

Gai covers him like a heavy blanket, like a shield but warm and alive. It feels good to close his eyes and let the darkness do the rest. With Gai's breath damp on his neck and his bulk on top of him, Kakashi can almost feel safe. But safety is a story for children; little genin fresh from the academy might fall for it, not Kakashi, who knows every vital spot on the human body, who knows exactly how to attack them, how quickly any living thing can be turned into a dead one.

Right now, he's alone with Gai, though, someone he knows he can trust implicitly, someone who is trying to protect him, who'll always try to protect him, whether Kakashi wants it or not.

Gai shifts on top of him, sending tendrils of heat slithering from his crotch into his belly as Gai's leg settles between Kakashi's.

The weird thing is that he can feel the small hairs on Gai's legs tickle his skin, that his nostrils are filled with Gai's musky scent and it doesn't do anything to quell his arousal.

Gai slips a hand under his neck, his lips moving against Kakashi's cheek, forming words, but all Kakashi can hear is the whisper of Gai's breath. No secrets are imparted in the darkness between them, and why would they be? This is the secret, Kakashi realizes, they're living it right now.

Gai is moving against him, just the slightest of movement, coaxing Kakashi's blood to the surface, bruising him with tenderness. He succumbs to it as easily as his body succumbed to the cold.

Kakashi's thoughts spiral away from him, fuelled by shameful fantasies that unfold in his mind despite his attempts to focus on the women he sees in Konoha, ex-girlfriends and affairs, to make this more acceptable by thinking about their bodies.

He can't.

He's thinking about Gai instead, about the heat between his legs and what he might be doing if he could get his hands to move. Kakashi fears he would embrace Gai, trail his hand down his friend's spine to the curve of his buttocks and then…

It's not something he should think about. It's not. But he can't help wondering what it would be like to slip inside Gai, to have him in a way he's sure no one else has ever had him.

Although they're close now, pressed up against one another, sharing body heat, and Gai is breathing into his neck, leaving dampness on his skin, Kakashi still wants to be closer. He wants to sink into Gai, lose himself in that heat, in that powerful body.

He wants to hold Gai, but he knows he never will.

* * *

Kakashi wakes up to Gai's absence and the sound of footsteps, the creaking of snow, and cold, clear air flowing into the tent through the open flap.

A wall of white outside. What little Kakashi can see of it looks like a hole in the world, like nothingness.

When he gets up, peeling himself out of the sleeping bag that sticks to his sore skin, his limbs still hold a little stiffness, his body still remembers.

He finds fresh clothes in his backpack. He also finds that Gai's come has dried into a beige scab on his belly. He leaves it, pulling his shirt on over the mark. It'll rub off long before they're home anyway.

* * *

Fully dressed, Kakashi steps out into the cold.

Gai is waiting next to the tent, shielding his eyes with one hand as he peers into the distance, looking for splotches of green in the endless white, Kakashi presumes.

He whips around to Kakashi when he hears him, perking up like an eager puppy, "Oh, Rival! You're up! Feeling better?"

There's a bit of a gloat in there, but Kakashi doesn't really mind. He's feeling wistful, what-might-have-beens branching out from his heart and flowing away like blood through capillaries. Kakashi lets them go. Gai will never make anybody happy.

"Hm." He nods without meeting Gai's shining eyes. That terrible brightness. Gai looks so open, so close, as though you could reach out and touch him, when in truth he's locked himself away behind eight gates.

The wind slashing at his face, Kakashi squares his shoulders.

In the distance, the sky bleeds seamlessly into the landscape, the horizon veiled in white.

"Let's go," Kakashi says.

end.


End file.
